Cuts will force universities to close ‘hundreds of courses’

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6973977.ece
Universities face having to close hundreds of courses to cope with government spending cuts of up to 30%, the most senior figure in British higher education has warned.
Steve Smith, president of Universities UK (UUK), said that if the cuts were as deep as feared they would be a “disaster” and “set the country back more than a decade”, badly damaging Britain’s ability to compete with highly skilled countries in the developing world.
Smith, who is vice-chancellor of Exeter University, said that even the series of spending cuts already announced were expected to reduce university budgets by 12.5%.
The effects are likely to include fewer academic staff, bigger classes and the recruitment of thousands more fee-paying foreign students. Elite institutions may also slash the places they offer British undergraduates.
Until now, higher education chiefs have been guarded in their criticism of government cutbacks, but Smith said this had to change if a crisis were to be averted. He said vice-chancellors “have really tried to work with the government, but now is the time to be blunt”.
He added: “This is a selfinflicted wound. They have put the investment in — now they are rolling back one of their own success stories. There will be an immediate effect on teaching quality. They are the most serious cuts since Mrs Thatcher in 1981.”
The new UUK calculations use forecasts by the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies, based on Treasury figures. They find that cuts could be far more severe even than those the government has announced.
UUK believes there could be an additional 6.3% a year removed from university spending for three years, taking the total to about 30%. This would force the closure of hundreds of courses and the sacking of thousands of staff.
“I put this to Lord Mandelson [the first secretary of state, responsible for universities] recently,” said Smith. “He just replied that these are projections. No one knows.”
Ministers have announced that some areas, such as schools, hospitals and foreign aid, are immune from spending cuts. The new calculations show how heavily areas of the state without special favour are likely to be hit as the next government tries to reduce a deficit of at least £178 billion.
Families on middle incomes will be particularly heavily hit as the government tries to claw back money from higher education. Smith said the system of grants and subsidised loans that helps students from families on incomes of up to £60,000 was a “major subsidy to the middle classes” that would have to be reconsidered.
However, even if the current funding review headed by Lord Browne, former chairman of BP, results in a “double whammy” for the middle classes of higher fees and lower grants and loans, this will not be enough to avoid cuts.
Insiders believe that even with minimal loss of funding as many as 30 universities face such severe trouble that they may not survive in their current form. Those officially “at risk” include London Metropolitan and Thames Valley.
Some experts see universities as victims of a political falling-out between Mandelson and Ed Balls, the children’s secretary, who won the battle over chancellor Alistair Darling’s pre-budget report and secured a spending increase for schools.